I know that when I focus on doing my job as a mom and enjoying my children and helping them to enjoy themselves, our lives go a lot easier. But I also know that taking time for myself is absolutely necessary for my sanity. Sometimes it seems like these two principles conflict. Sometimes it feels like the more of myself I give the kids, the more they demand, and the less I can take or save for myself.

But dwelling too much on myself only makes my job as a mother more difficult. The kids get more and more desperate for attention and act out, and I get more and more frustrated. So I’m constantly looking for something in the middle: immersing myself in my kids, then taking time to recoup and regenerate. With our schedules still settling after the start of school, it’ll take a while longer to find what works for us, because that balance is always moving and changing.

What do you think? How do you find a balance?

Of course, this balancing act of motherhood changes nearly every day. One day, you can hardly pick up a gallon of milk; the next, your children sit through an hour and a half of grocery shopping without complaint.

But as your children grow and change, and sometimes our family expands, we are constantly having to adjust. Finding balance is a balancing act in an of itself.

And even if you do find balance, it doesn’t mean that your point of balance is necessarily an easy or leisurely one. Because being a mom just isn’t easy all the time. And it seems that sometimes “balance” is less a give-and-take between mom and baby and more of a “how much are you willing to give” for mom.

Wesley Jeanne at Mountain Mama wrote about this over the weekend.

I remember at my cousin Stacy’s baby shower (before kids for me), her older sister Karyn gave us both the advice that we should fit kids into our lifestyles rather than fit our lifestyles to our kids. I nodded sagely, sure of the wisdom of her advice. After all, at the time I thought it ridiculous if my friends with children wouldn’t do something because it interfered with nap time or was too inconvenient for the kids. I swore I wouldn’t be like that. When I had kids, I would be flexible, relaxed, I would have them adjust to my life.

You’re smiling. I know. I was delusional, wasn’t I?

Two kids later I do try to be flexible. I won’t bar the door and turn off the telephone and block all outside light during nap time, for example. My kids have learned to nap in a house that is impossible to keep dark and silent (I have a dog, I have neighbors, I don’t even have curtains on many of my windows).

But as a mother I also have to be aware at all times of the needs of my children. I am painfully aware of what happens when they don’t get enough sleep, when they get overstimulated, when their routine gets thrown for more than a day. Children need for parents to be flexible, but they also need structure. It just works better that way for all of us.

Although Wesley Jeanne goes on to acknowledge that it’s very hard to accommodate your schedule to your children, and being a prepared-mom-on-the-go is actually a lot more work than it looks like, I think the above statements show that she gets the underlying idea: a mom tries to be flexible and have fun with her kids, but at the same time, she has to put her kids’ needs first.

Of course, it’s easy to say that and know that, and another thing to do that. So head on over to Mountain Mama and show your support. Because sometimes, that’s what a mom really needs to feel better about this balancing act.